The Review Magazine Summer 2025

Alma Navigates Water Infrastructure Funding ALMA pop. 9,488

By Emily Landau Thanks to the MI Water Navigator program (whose services are now part of MI Funding Hub), communities like Alma have been able to access funding from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy's (EGLE) State Revolving Fund (SRF). This came at a historic time when EGLE was to receive American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) dollars. Given as grants, the ARP funds were paired with EGLE’s low interest loans. Along with the assistance of the MI Water Navigator helpdesk, Alma was able to apply for, and eventually received, $9.7 million in ARP grant funds. “This is by far a historical amount of grant funding. We’ve had some but not really on the order of magnitude that we have given out recently,” said Kris Donaldson, Clean Water Public Advocate at EGLE. “I'd say this feels like it's a once in-a-career [event] for me. I haven't seen anything like it in the last 20 years of drinking water, and I don't know if I'm going to continue to see it.”

Alma is the largest city in Gratiot County, with a population of just over 9,400. It’s home to Alma College, a small liberal arts school, as well as Michigan Health’s regional hospital, which recently saw over $40 million in upgrades. Alma has a vibrant arts scene, including a community theater and visual arts center. Its industry includes automotive suppliers and Avalon, one of the nation’s top pontoon boat manufacturers. Despite its rural setting, Alma boasts renewable energy projects—including over 700 windmills and a 450-acre solar field—and a historic downtown. The City is also rare in that it relies on local taxes to build and maintain local streets, with a voted-on Local Street Program millage of 3.5 mills (increased in 2022 from 2.5 mills) that goes through every six years for the reconstruction of neighborhood streets. “I want to say it was 1997 or 1998, when we were rebuilding the road surface, we started thinking, ‘Let's put in a new water line,’” said Aeric Ripley, Alma city manager. “We started doing that, and then we found ourselves saying, ‘Why aren't we doing the sewer?’ And so, a few summers in, we started replacing sewer mains. When we develop that six-year list, the determination with streets to rehab is what the infrastructure is like underneath. But we really didn't have the funds on hand to replace all the water mains.”

“ This is by far a historical amount of grant funding. ”

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| Summer 2025